Identifying and Advocating Best Practices in the Criminal Justice System. A Texas-Centric Examination of Current Conditions, Reform Initiatives, and Emerging Issues with a Special Emphasis on Capital Punishment.

Colorado Public Opinion Polling

Coloradans said that the death penalty
will be an important factor when they cast ballots in next year's
governor's race, and also harbor strong disapproval of the state
legislature, according to a wide-ranging national independent poll
released Thursday.

In the poll conducted by the Quinnipiac
University Polling Institute, 74 percent of residents say that the
issue over the state's death penalty will be either "very important" or
"somewhat important" in a contest where Republicans will be vying to
unseat incumbent Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper.

In May, Hickenlooper granted an indefinite reprieve to
Nathan Dunlap, a convicted murder who killed four people at an Aurora
Chuck E. Cheese in 1993. Dunlap was scheduled to be executed in August.

The
poll found that 67 percent of Coloradans disapprove of Hickenlooper's
decision to grant the reprieve to Dunlap, compared to 27 percent who
approve of it.

"The governor has made it clear that certainly on
his watch it doesn't appear anyone is going to be executed in this
state, and that's an important point," said Tim Malloy, assistant
director of the Quinnipiac Polling Institute.

Hickenlooper was a rare Democrat elected during the Republican wave
year of 2010, and has positioned himself as a nonpartisan centrist. But
he ended up in an increasingly partisan corner after Democrats retook
the statehouse in November and muscled through a number of contentious
measures, including a package of new gun control laws. That could be
taking a toll on Hickenlooper’s ratings. The poll said 49 percent of
voters disapprove of the Legislature and only 36 percent approve.

Democrats
have won the past three gubernatorial elections in Colorado. The state
remains evenly split between Democrats, Republicans and independents.
Republicans and independents overwhelmingly support the death penalty,
by 87-11 and 73-21 margins, respectively, the poll suggested. Democrats
support it more narrowly, 49-41.

The
poll indicated voters narrowly approve of Hickenlooper’s performance as
governor, 47 percent to 43 percent. But the governor is struggling with
independents. Only 44 percent approve while 47 percent disapprove.

The
poll of 1,065 registered voters was taken from June 5-11 with live
telephone interviews on landlines and cellphones. It has a sampling
error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Quinnipiac surveyed 1,065 registered voters from June 5-10. The
poll's margin of error is plus-or-minus 3 percentage points. Only 24
percent of respondents identified themselves as Democrats, nine
percentage points lower than the share that turned out in 2010,
according to exit polls. Still, the survey reveals that the governor is
suffering with independents, 47 percent of whom disapprove of
Hickenlooper, compared to 44 percent who approve. However, Hickenlooper
actually lost independents to Tancredo in 2010, despite beating Tancredo
by nearly 15 percentage points overall; the Republican ticket led by
businessman Dan Maes captured only 11 percent of the vote.

The new poll also suggests it's no stretch to draw a line between
Hickenlooper's declining popularity and recent items on his agenda.
Hickenlooper granted a temporary death penalty reprieve to convicted
murderer Nathan Dunlap in May, saying Colorado's application of the death penalty was "imperfect and inherently inequitable."

But 69 percent of voters say the state should continue having the
death penalty as a legal option, and 67 percent said they disagreed with
Hickenlooper's decision to grant the reprieve. Tancredo cited Hickenlooper's decision as a main motivator for entering the race again next year.

Meanwhile, 49 percent of the poll respondents said they disapproved
of the job performance of the state legislature, which is controlled by
Democrats and wrote a number of liberal priorities -- including some
contentious ones -- into law this year. A suite of new gun laws caused
particular controversy and led to an ongoing recall effort against two
Democratic state senators. Hickenlooper did not issue any vetoes in
2013, though he did help scuttle some bills (including a death penalty
repeal effort) before they could get to his desk.

Nearly 70 percent of Centennial State respondents told Qunnipiac they
would like to retain capital punishment as an option for prosecutors,
even though only roughly 50 percent of the voters surveyed believe the
death penalty is applied fairly in the state and even though 57 percent
say they don’t believe it prevents crime.

Momentum in the U.S. has generally been moving away from capital
punishment in recent years. Officials have argued against it as DNA
evidence has exonerated defendants who have landed on death row and as
repeat studies show death sentences are more frequently meted out in
cases featuring poor and ethnic minority defendants.

Colorado Democratic Governor Hickenlooper has drawn fire in the weeks
since he granted death row convicted murderer Nathan Dunlap a reprieve.
Dunlap gunned down four people in Aurora in 1993. There was never any
question about his innocence. Hickenlooper said the reprieve was less
about Dunlap than about the fact that the death penalty is unevenly
applied in Colorado.

“Our system of capital punishment is imperfect and inherently
inequitable,” he said. “Such a level of punishment really does demand
perfection.”

The three men currently on the state’s death row all come from Arapahoe County. They are all African American.

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The StandDown Texas Project

The StandDown Texas Project was organized in 2000 to advocate a moratorium on executions and a state-sponsored review of Texas' application of the death penalty.
To stand down is to go off duty temporarily, especially to review safety procedures.

Steve Hall

Project Director Steve Hall was chief of staff to the Attorney General of Texas from 1983-1991; he was an administrator of the Texas Resource Center from 1993-1995. He has worked for the U.S. Congress and several Texas legislators. Hall is a former journalist.